Originally posted by cmdr_sponge the earth of star trek has no money, people do things for each other. in one of the films they go back to earth and are suprised that people are spending money.

Gene Rodenberry wanted to create an optimistic picture of
the future of all humanity. This is one of the most appealing
things about Star Trek that originally made it completely different from most other sci-fi stories. An important aspect of that oprtimistic picture was to not just show what can be achieved
in the future in terms of space exploration, alien contact and
so on, but also remedy the problems of modern society.

Originally posted by cmdr_sponge
when kirk is found guilty he is sent down the (salt?) mines.

Staff: Mentor

Originally posted by russ_watters Didn't Marx consider communism to be utopia?

maybe in his book. But practice always sucks....
Anyway we used money in communism and people didn't do things for each other more that now. The main difference is freedom of speech, acces to information and more stupid politicians.

not even the transporters worked all the time (that happens especially when the away team is in some sort of trouble). and they can't pass warp 10 (or around this number).
so as I said, practice really sucks sometimes...

Originally posted by Guybrush Threepwood maybe in his book. But practice always sucks....
Anyway we used money in communism and people didn't do things for each other more that now. The main difference is freedom of speech, acces to information and more stupid politicians.

the only thing that stops communism working is people.

(can u make 100% no sense, surely its 0% sense, or nonsense, or complete yaxitrake)

Strange... I always found nationalist overtones in there. You know, the power of the militaristic starfleet, the people all dressed in uniform, the hypocrisy of the various directives and the insistence it's all about exploring, not conquering, though they seem to do alot of the latter by accident.

Some thoughts off the top of my head: There has never been a Communist state on Earth. They called it Communism for P.R. reasons; the reasoning used by places like the former Soviet Union goes, "we have to first take total control and *then* decentralize everything". Well, we know that a Camel will pass through the eye of a needle before a human gives up his power. Communism is a decentralized state; much like the internet. The closest the Earth has ever come to Communism is America (or by some accounts, Canada)! The Soviet Union was (slowly) a dictatorship.

There were many writers, producers, businessmen etc. getting their fingers into the creative process, especially after Roddenberry passed, so indicting it for inconsistencies is a tad over wrought, to my mind.

I first saw the reference to the Star Trek future not using money in the movie, "Star Trek 4". Then it was mentioned in ST:TNG. Then in the movie, "First Contact" where Picard went into it in terms that were anything but ambiguous.

In fact, the evolution toward that kind of society is already happening; but (Levarr Burton voice) you don't have to take my word for it! See: www.home-ed-press.com[/url] and [PLAIN]www.anxietyculture.com, [Broken] for example. Some ppl. may not like it and to them I say, don't worry. By the time the world has become a place that rattles your tea cups, you'll be dead!

The Star Trek economic system most closely resembles utopian socialism. Communism is a very specific form of socialism. When economists speak of communism, marxism and utopian socialism they have different, specific things in mind.